


Specific and Valid

by nevereverever



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Appendicitis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Love, Surgery, everyone is okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 04:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16234352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: In general, people have things about hospitals because in general good things do not happen within their walls. In general people remember sickness, injury, and death when hospitals are mentioned, and it is for that reason that they don’t make particularly good light conversation.The Baudelaires had a very specific and valid thing about hospitals, and it is for that reason that Violet Baudelaire was specifically and validly avoiding it.





	Specific and Valid

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, I wrote this a good bit ago and forgot to post it. Enjoy!

In general, people have things about hospitals because in general good things do not happen within their walls. In general, people remember sickness, injury, and death when hospitals are mentioned, and it is for that reason that they don’t make particularly good light conversation.

The Baudelaires had a very specific and valid thing about hospitals, and it is for that reason that Violet Baudelaire was specifically and validly avoiding it.

She was sick, very sick, in a non-solvable by Sunny’s chicken soup kind of way. Klaus was at work at the library, she had taken sick leave from her job at a local mechanic’s, and Sunny and Bea were both at school. Thus, she was alone in their apartment feeling very very sick.

She was incredibly nauseous, had a slight fever, but most of all had crippling pain in her abdomen. Klaus has been worried to leave her alone, but they needed the money so she had convinced him to go to work.

Her only problem was that as the hours ticked on, her pain only got worse and worse. The hot water bottle she had been clutching to her stomach since Klaus left had gone cold, but she couldn’t bring herself to warm it up again. ‘This isn’t that bad’ ran through her head like a mantra as she took slow deep breaths. She closed her eyes in the hope of getting a little sleep, and it must have worked because the next time she opened them three things had happened. 

1\. The pain in her stomach had moved to her lower right side.  
2\. The pain had grown immensely.  
3\. Someone was softly brushing her hair from her face, and someone else was sitting on her feet humming something soothing. 

“Klaus?” Violet asked softly, her voice cracking with tears she hadn’t realized she had been holding in. Her eyelids fluttered against her will as if trying to draw her back into unconsciousness where she was safe from the pain.

“Hey, I’m here. You feel really warm, I think we should get you off this couch and into bed.” Klaus smiled a little, running a hand over her shoulder to get her to sit up.

“Sunny?” Violet said, dazed as Klaus ushered her into a sitting position. It made the pain worse, but she couldn’t find the words to mention it. Her body felt like it was made of lead.

“I’m here Vi,” Sunny called from the kitchen. Something that smelled good was cooking, but even the thought of eating made Violet want to be sick. Oh, so it was Bea sitting on her legs. Great.

“I don’t - I feel bad. It hurts,” Violet said, so soft you could barely hear her. Her brain was swimming through molasses. She had so much to say but the words were stuck in her throat.

“Okay Violet,” he whispered reassuringly before pulling her to her feet. 

A flash of pain, then nothing.

Violet was on the floor. She was on the ground out cold. Looking at her, Klaus’ instincts kicked in and he wanted to get her away where they would be safe. He was taller than her now, and strong, so he could pick her up and put her in bed and shepherd her back to health. But his logical brain kicked in and said no. She needed help. Help meant...

“Sunny, Sunny you need to call 911!” Klaus called out to his baby sister as he fell to his knees to examine Violet. She was burning up. He could hear Sunny scramble for a phone, he could hear Bea crying, but all he could do was put a hand on Violet’s chest and feel her breath and wait. 

Violet started to come to almost as soon as Sunny picked up the phone. She blinked for a moment before clutching her side and letting out a pained moan that made her siblings wince. 

“Klaus,” she whispered again, grabbing for her brother's hand, “please don’t call...”

“We have to Violet, I don’t think we can fix this on our own. I’m sorry,” he said, shaking. Klaus also didn’t like hospitals for very specific and valid reasons, but he loved his sisters more than he could ever fear anything.

“It hurts so much. I can’t move,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks, “scared.” Her normally articulate sentences were gone, replaced by quiet whimpers and sharp intakes of breath. 

“I know, I’m sorry, but that’s why we’re getting you help. We can do this, I promise,” Klaus whispered, brushing a tear from her too warm cheek.

Sunny hung up the phone and crossed their little apartment to grab her big sister’s hand.

“Everything’s going to be okay Vi, we’ll be with you the whole time. We won’t let anything bad happen to you.” She gave Violet’s hand a squeeze, and Violet squeezed back. The pain was eating up all of her focus, and she heard people walking through their door before she let consciousness slip through her fingers.

They could only take one person in the ambulance. Sunny and Klaus stared at each other for a long minute. They didn’t say anything, but once Violet was on the stretcher, Sunny had her arms around Bea and Klaus was walking with the EMTs.

The ambulance wasn’t that bad. The men stabbing Violet with needles was hard to handle, but Klaus could do it. He was past it, they had both been through much worse. Right?

The hospital was so much worse, the lights were blinding. People kept yelling things he didn’t have the ability to process, and all he could do was check around every corner as he struggled to take in a breath.

We aren’t back there. We are back there. They’re here. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.

Appendectomy, they said, an emergency. He’s here. Surgery, they said, easy and safe. Lies. Dirty lies for the mouths of dirty people. He’s here, why couldn’t they understand that?

“Can I come with her- no- I- she can’t be- I don’t want her to be alone-“ Klaus stuttered as they started prepping his sister for surgery. It felt like the world was flickering between Heimlich Hospital and the present until he couldn’t tell what the present was. He was racking his brains for some reason to make them let him stay with her, but everything felt like it was buzzing.

“Young man, she’ll be just fine, you don’t have to worry,” someone said, someone in a doctor’s coat with a face he couldn’t remember

“Please don’t cut off her head!” At the perfect second, Sunny and Bea arrived. They started to wheel Violet away and Klaus started to cry and Sunny wound her arms around her big brother.

“They’re going to cut off her head Sunny, we have to save her,” he said, fighting against her embrace. He had to get to Violet.

“No, we don’t. She’s safe, okay? She’s going to come back through those doors in an hour and be totally fine,” she said, still holding tight, “take a deep breath.”

 

“You don’t understand. He’s here, and he’s going to take her into surgery and kill her. He’s here Sunny,” Klaus said, frantic. Sunny kept holding on to him, half a hug and half restraint. Unfortunately, she was well versed in calming her siblings down from flashbacks.

“He’s not here, okay? He’s dead Klaus, I promise. Just please sit down and breathe!” Sunny was scared because it was almost never this bad. She didn’t like being scared of or for her siblings, and right then, she was both. 

It took a minute, but Klaus took a deep breath, and his head cleared a little. Sunny was right, he was dead. The image of his body on that beach was burned into the back of Klaus’ eyes. He leaned a little into Sunny’s hug, and she relaxed a little, relieved to have her big brother back. When he let go, he pulled Bea into a hug too. She didn’t know yet why her siblings hurt like this, so she hugged him even tighter.

 

He sat down and put his head in his hands. 

“You promise?” He asked, rubbing at his temples. The world was still buzzing, but he could think again.

“I promise,” Sunny replied, “Bea, tell him the story about your spelling bee today, I’m going to find a doctor.” All of 13, Sunny marched out of the room and grabbed the first doctor she laid eyes on.

 

When Violet awoke, her first sensation was that her mouth was dry, then that her stomach hurt. She stayed home from work, she remembered, Sunny was making dinner. Lazily, she let her eyes drift open, only to be greeted by the sight of a heart monitor and an IV. It only took her a second to react, jerking into full awareness. Her brain was muddled and she couldn’t figure out why. Probably whatever drugs were flowing into her arm. She couldn’t believe that they had caught her, again.

Before she could grab at the needle in her arm, someone grabbed both of her hands, and someone else started humming something her frazzled brain couldn’t place. She moved her head towards the sound to see Sunny standing next to her, humming. She looked to the other side to see Klaus, holding tightly to her hands.

“Hey. You’re safe, okay. You’re safe, I promise,” he said, running the pads of his thumbs over the back of her hands. She tried to jerk them away but he held tight. 

“No, no, have they got you on drugs too? Klaus, please, we have to go.” Her voice was scratchy with dryness and disuse, and she just wanted to scream. She pulled harder against his hands, and sat up abruptly, igniting the pain in her stomach. Sunny put a hand on her shoulder and shepherded her back to bed.

“Violet, I’m not on any drugs, and you are only on painkillers. We are in the hospital because you had appendicitis, but you had surgery, so you’re okay now. Sunny and Bea are here too. You are 23 years old, and no one is coming after us. I promise. Breathe, Vi, breathe,” he said in calming tones. Struggling, Violet took a deep breath. He was right, they were safe, he wasn’t there. She nodded just slightly to let him know she was okay.

“Can I have some water?” she asked, shakily. Sunny grabbed a cup and brought the straw to her lips. The water slipped down her throat like a prayer, and she smiled. He wasn’t there, but her siblings always would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Let me know in a comment!


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